Solar Energy Harvesting Using Radio-Controlled Aircraft

As the world faces a climate crisis and ozone depletion, it is essential to turn our attention to renewable energy sources. Fossil fuels used in the automobile and aviation industry generate huge amounts of air pollution damaging the environment. Pollution generated by this industry contributes to 2.1% of all human-induced carbon dioxide emissions. Renewable energy usage has surged in the last five years to a great extent. Solar energy is one of the most widely used and available sources of energy. Solar photovoltaics accounted for 3.6% of global electricity generation, and it remains the third largest renewable electricity technology behind hydropower and wind. To generate energy through solar, solar panels are used. But the problem with solar panels is that their efficiency is low and a large number of panels are required which take up a huge amount of space on land. The area of land used for solar goes to waste. Hence, this paper aims to solve the problem by developing a solar-powered aircraft to generate energy using solar. We designed different radio-controlled (RC) aircraft models and analyzed the performance of the aircraft using solar sheets, solar panels, and solar cells on the model. We calculated the energy/power required to power the aircraft and which configuration provides the best results.